For students at three Chicago Public Schools, learning about the muscular skeletal system is now a welcome experience, thanks to dancers from Giordano Dance Chicago.
With its inception eight years ago at Helen C. Peirce School of International Studies, the Giordano Dance Chicago’s Jazz Dance/Science & Health program teaches anatomy, nutrition and health through dance-centric activity. Designed to meet the Illinois Learning Standards for science curriculum in fourth, fifth and seven grades, dancers from the company provide 16 one-hour, in-class education programs at Peirce, Richard J. Oglesby Elementary School in Englewood and Mozart Elementary School, all in underserved communities.
“Part of our mission is to give back to the community, to change lives through dance,” says Nan Giordano, who runs the South Loop-based dance company. “Stimulation (and) physical activity help students focus, and they do better.”
In fact, studies have shown that engaging in physical activity during the learning process aids in retention of the subject matter. The Giordano company dancers lead the dance classes, which are enhanced by materials that detail the human muscular and skeletal systems and provide information related to nutrition, the value of physical activity, and importance of hydration during exercise.
“It really brings things to life with the children,” says Vivien Leventis, fifth grade teacher at Peirce. “I work my science curriculum around what we’re doing with Giordano because the dance programs reinforce the science. It helps them retain everything.”
Funding for the program is provided by the Polk Bros. Foundation, The Crown Family and theAlphawood Foundation. With the good results they have seen—ISAT science scores in some participating classrooms have risen since the start of the program—Giordano is working to develop new measurement criteria and mechanisms to prove the long-term impact of the program on students, teachers and the schools in which it’s offered.
Giordano also hopes to expand the program to other Chicago elementary schools. While it’s currently offered to fourth, fifth and seventh graders, material and content adjustments can be made to allow the company to offer the program to other grade levels.
For Leventis’s students, the students’ learning comes with joy and often newfound confidence.
“Some of the students start out timid and saying they won’t want to do it, and they end up loving it and being the best dancers,” Leventis says. “And then they sometimes cry at the end of the program. The dancers are so great with the kids.”
